Joel & Ethan Coen I'm a sucker for something different. Cookie-cutter movies where I can guess the third act in the first 5 minutes frustrate me. I'm also a sucker for ambiguity of theme that holds up to multiple interpretations. Movies should be about something, and if what they're about is still interesting to talk about 5 years later, I'm in. I'm also a sucker for compelling characters played by actors who ought to be more famous than they are.
Those are just 3 reasons why I love the Coen Brothers.
They are often accused of being too concerned with style over substance. They frustrate viewers who are looking for run-of-the-mill payoffs and comforting explanations. Instead, they load their films with detailed and panoramic cinematography, intricate dialogue, and eccentric character studies. To the Coens, theme is more important than plot. The plot is often secondary, which can be off-putting for viewers who are used to the Hollywood machine.
Speaking of the Hollywood machine, the fact that the Coens have been successful in this era of moviemaking is another point in their favor. In previous eras of Hollywood, it was much easier to be an auteur and carve out your own style and make the movies your own way. In this generation of commercialism and overseas markets where dying studios pump out 27 superhero knockoffs every year to dying multiplexes in 3-D, the existence of films like
The Man Who Wasn't There or
No Country for Old Men is astonishing.
Actors line up three-deep for a chance to work with these guys. Their stable of actors is unparalleled: John Turturro, Jon Polito, Michael Lerner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, John Goodman, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Stephen Root, Marcia Gay Harden, Tony Shalhoub, and Bruce Campbell. Even with that kind of talent, they never veer from the pre-determined vision they create. More than one actor has told the tale that after a take where they attempted to add something to the performance, Ethan would remark, "That was great. Now try saying what's in the script." When you consider the dialogue in movies like
Miller's Crossing or
The Hudsucker Proxy, or
O Brother, Where Art Thou or even
The Big Lebowski, it's apparent that they take their writing very seriously and out-write everyone else in the industry.
Their cinematography is also always impressive. They work as laboriously over the details of the shot as they do over the dialogue. It doesn't hurt to have Roger Deakins shooting the majority of your films. Whether it's the forest at Miller's Crossing or the Hotel Earle in
Barton Fink or the frozen fields in
Fargo or the Texas vistas in
No Country for Old Men, you won't find too many films where the cinematography is this important or powerful.
One of my favorite characteristics of their films is the hidden meanings of things. Often, the brothers deny that it is intentional (like the many hellish hints to the true meaning of
Barton Fink) other times it's underscoring the theme of the movie (like the UFO hints in
The Man Who Wasn't There). It's one of the reasons I love
A Serious Man so much. The viewer is left to interpret the weirdness of the Dybbuk scene at the beginning and how it matches the theme of the rest of the film, which is weird in its own right. Viewers that want everything handed to them in a nice, tidy package won't "get" the Coens, and people who "get" the Coens can be smug and insufferable. But I think the fun is in the "getting".
They had some missteps in the early '00s when they directed some films they didn't write (
Intolerable Cruelty and
The Ladykillers). Other films seem to produce strong reactions, even from Coen fans. I love
A Serious Man and
The Hudsucker Proxy, but only mildly enjoy
Lebowski and
Raising Arizona.
Fargo and
No Country for Old Men rightfully sit at the top of their catalog, but I'll take
Miller's Crossing and
Barton Fink as their two best.
My final comment is about how wonderfully they end their films.
Miller's Crossing ends with a walk down a long wooded road that's clearly an homage to the end of
The Third Man (my favorite last shot ever).
Barton Fink ends with an amazing shot on the beach that doesn't answer anything about the main character. Then a bird suddenly plunges into the ocean. After the extreme violence of
Fargo, it ends with a domestic conversation about duck stamps.
Burn After Reading actually ended with a character admitting that they hadn't learned anything and the entire plot was meaningless. But my favorite endings are the ones that end suddenly and leave you scratching your head:
No Country... pissed off viewers by ending abruptly on Tommy Lee Jones's dream without resolving the chase, even though it perfectly illustrated the movie's theme.
A Serious Man ended with an oncoming tornado, resolving nothing about the main character's existential questions. Again, perfectly illustrating the theme. I always look forward to Coen Brothers movies because I know the ending will be brilliant. I just love things that end abrup